foto Priority

As the first batch of 2011 Digital SLR Photography students eagerly await their Top 30 results we have a little bit of exciting news to announce.

The Top 30 will now have a ‘Viewers Choice Award’ for the most popular image as selected by you, our supporters and photography enthusiasts.

The process is simple, just after Easter once the first Top 30 for 2011 is announced, we will create a gallery where you will be able to browse through the final  images and vote for your favourites. The image that gets the most votes within a set period of a month will receive the great prize courtesy of Lexar Media.

“To show Lexar Media’s continued support of the Australian photography industry, it is proud to support the SPW Top 30 Viewer’s Choice Award. Lexar media will be offering the talented winner of this award a professional photographer’s memory accessory prize pack, valued at $470.00″

The pack includes;

1x Professional Dual Slot Reader

2x 16GB 600x CF Cards

1x 16GB JumpDrive S70

We’re sure you’ll agree that it’s indeed a very worthy prize. A huge thank you to Lexar Media for their kind support. Make sure to check out Lexar’s Digital Photography page for some great workflow tips and lessons.

Meanwhile, do yourself a favour and check out the amazing selection of Top 30 images from 2010.

2010 “Top 30″ Galleries

2010 Intake 1	2010 Intake 2
2010 Intake 3	2010 Intake 4
2010 Intake 5

Also, don’t forget to check us out on Facebook. Make sure to ‘like’ our fan page to receive all the latest updates and inspirational tid-bits.

Sydney Photographic Workshops Fan Page

As I initially came across this iPad app and without knowing what an Ephemoris was, I assumed it would be just another exposure calculator “photo buddy” app for which I’ve yet to discover a practical use in my day to day photographic activities. For some strange reason however, I felt compelled to check it out. Perhaps it was the rather cool, old school icon that drew me in.

What I discovered however, was exactly what I have been desperately yearning for, to assist with location scouting and shoot planning. This baby is going to save me hours in returning to locations checking sun (and also moon) rise and set positions.

This is probably the best $12 I’ve spent on the iPad for my photography. If you don’t own an iPad then it is also available for the iPhone and as a free Mac or PC desktop app.

Photoephemeris.com

By the way, here is the dictionary definition.

ephemeris |iˈfem(ə)ris|noun ( pl. -erides |-ərədēz|) Astronomy & Astrologya table or data file giving the calculated positions of a celestial object at regular intervals throughout a period.• a book or set of such tables or files.ORIGIN early 16th cent.: from Latin, from Greekephēmeros ‘lasting only a day.’

Approximately every 8 weeks on the final night of our beginners Digital SLR Workshop, 60+ graduates swallow hard and with a USB key in hand accompanied by a pre prepared disclaimer, allow us to download the fruits of their 8 week technical and creative toil, for all to see on the big screen.

Although scary at first, time and time again the final night presentations prove to be an incredibly rewarding and inspiring experience for all involved, with the quality and diversity of the work never failing to impress. This time was no different, from 1275 images we edited down to 30.

Selecting so few from so many is not an easy task and is definitely not something we take lightly, so just to give you an idea of how the process works here is a quick rundown.

Once the final night presentations are all done and dusted, the resulting images are compiled into a single Lightroom catalogue where any references to the image creator are removed as we put Lightroom in “lights-out” mode ready for the first edit.

With nothing on the screen but the image we run through each one, judging on initial impact, creative content and idea plus overall presentation. Those receiving a single star survive to the next round, where the judging really heats up.

In the second round usually with 300-400 images to look at we start comparing based on set criteria borrowed from the Australian Professional Photography Awards (APPA’s). You might think it as a bit of an overkill but when faced with that many images to compare, one definitely needs some set guidelines to go by.  As we view, review, compare and argue we normally manage to issue 50-60 two star ratings.

The third and final round starts with an elimination by legibility, where we set up a Lightroom view showing us the capture date in the metadata for each of the images,  and eliminate all those created prior to the commencement of the workshop. From there we continue to compare and discuss, usually by similar subject matter, eliminating individual images until there are just the 30 left.

Overall the images are selected based on the following criteria; impact, creativity, subject matter, composition, centre of interest, file quality, lighting, colour balance, story telling, style, and technique. I believe that keeping these in mind when you are out and about creating your images and practicing your photography is a sure fire way to improve.

Congratulations to all those who made the final cut!!!

See the latest Top 30 HERE

Enjoy!

We really spoilt for choice at the moment with the amount of cool exhibitions coming up in the world of photography. Below is a list of what’s on in and around the eastern states over the next few months.

Head on Photography Festival

Sydney April 29th to June 5th

This inaugural festival is a collection of exhibitions and events in galleries, cafes and restaurants around Sydney showcasing local and international photography. The festival launches with the announcement of the sought after Head On portraiture prize.

View official site View event schedule

AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards

Melbourne June 3rd to 6th

The Australian Professional Photography Awards (APPAs) recognising the best of the best in Australian photography

View official site

The SMH Photos -1440: A Day a Minute a Moment

Sydney July 3rd – 1st August

The Sydney Morning Herald exhibition will be presented at the State Library of NSW featuring prints and multimedia of the best published and unpublished work by Herald staff from 2009 to today

View official site View exhibitions photos

World Press Photo

Brisbane June 5th to 27th

Sydney July 3rd to 25th

This exhibition showcases the winning images from the professional press photography awards. These images are sure to inspire, move you and show you an enlightening perspective on the world.

View official site

Hi all, creativeLIVE.com is a world wide creative classroom that has only been around a couple of months but by the looks of the site and its content it’s going to be a real winner amongst creative types like us. There are a host courses covering a fairly wide cross section for photographers, from beginner type introductory courses to something more specific like aperture3 or writing java applications.

Each live presentation/webinar is FREE! Yes FREE, you just have to enroll prior to the start time and watch them live, you can even ask questions at Q&A time. The only time you pay for the online course is if you miss it live and you want to watch the recording.

Take a look around yourself, be sure to check out this very cool Photoshop CS5 video, it introduces us to some cool new features and in addition you get a feel of how the classes are run.

Deanna O'Leary - © Linnet Foto/SPW

One of our favorite models Deanna strikes a pose for the group at the ever popular Photographing People Workshop. The location is at Quarantine Reserve,  Abbotsford, also one of our favorites.

2010 Workshop Schedule

© Daniel Linnet (SPW) - Sonia @ Photographing People Workshop, June 2005

One of the first Photographing People Workshops where I demonstrated the location lighting technique, “Night for Day” and shooting into the sun, which even to this day never fail to impress the masses. Ooohs and aaahs all around!

2010 Workshop Schedule

More of Daniel Linnet’s Work

Small Worlds – Preview. from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Last week Daniel and I attended a talk on social media put on by the people at the ACMP. One of the speakers was Keith Loutit, a Sydney based photographer and filmmaker. His recent bathtub series of short films using tilt-shift / time-lapse techniques have attracted a huge amount of interest over the internet, especially on vimeo and youtube where the films have attached 1000’s of viewers. Take a look at some of his videos, I’m sure they’ll blow you away as they did to us!

Keith is holding an exhibition of his work at Customs House Circular Quay in Sydney. Details are below.

Small Worlds: Stills & film from the ‘Bathtub’ &’Small Worlds’ series of short films by Keith Loutit.

Location: Media wall, ground floor customs house & level two library, Customs House 31 Alfred St Sydney NSW 2000

Exhibition dates:  27 April, 2010 to 7 July 2010.

It’s nice to know that someone out there is looking out for the rights of all us photographers, pro or amateur. The Australian Institute of Professional Photography’s (AIPP) “Competition Watchdog” William Long has recently successfully lobbied Australian Tourism to change it’s “Nothing Like Australia” photo contest entry terms which were a blatant disregard for photographer’s rights.

A big thank you to William Long and the AIPP team!

Read the full press release

Enter “Nothing Like Australia” Contest

Join the AIPP

Behind The Scenes - The amazing Bradley Chatfield turns it on for our first ever weekend workshop back in June 2005

I can’t believe that I didn’t think of this earlier! Last night while trolling through the thousands of images taken over the last 5 years worth of workshops, I realised that there are just so many amazing images that have never really been seen, so over the next however many months I’m going to open up the vault and see what pops out. The amazing models, cool locations and the fun we had.

Hope you enjoy seeing them as much as we enjoyed making them.

Link to Sydney Photographic Workshops